90 years after the facts, the WW1 reasearchers and historians are still going at it in my home town and it's surroundings...
every year the Flemish mud still releases
http://www.nieuwsblad.be/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleID=GQU16LRSG
rough translation
Langemark-Poelkapelle
after long time puzzeling with pieces and airplane parts , Piet Steen has finally identified the wreckage as beeing from a German WW1 bomber.
Farmer Danien Parrein started the whole case in 1981 when he found fragments of an airplane while plowing.. Some thought it was the plane from French ace Georges Guynemer.
but recent research by Piet Steen , member of the local Georges Guynemer rememberance committe has now ruled out this possibility.
During a research visit at the french Musee de l'air et de l'Espace, in Paris, he asked specialist technician and had them look at pictures from the wreackage... they came to the conclusion it had to be a heavy German bomber..
Steen then went to the Royal Museam of Army and Warhistory in Brussels, where he found a resemblance with the Mercedes Type IVa engine , from a Gotha Bomber
The research nearly came to a dead end, untill they found out that in 1918 , a Zeppelin-Staaken, with the same type of engine crashed in Westrozebeke, not far from the finding place... This then led the researchers to the Polish Air Museum in Krakau, where the last engine pod from a Zeppelin-Staaken was found.. Ingraves with markings , the last doubt was lifted, the wreck was a Zeppelin-Staaken RVI R34/16
These German planes, had a wingspan of 42.2 meters, making them the larges planes used during WW1, only 18 were ever made, and they could carry 2 ton bombs , and operated over London and Northern France....
Steen and collegue Johan Vanbeselaere hope that this discovery leads to more historical finds and research regarding giant bombers...